Massimo Giorgetti speaks candidly about leaving Pucci

On a blustery winter morning at the Hotel Café Royal in London, Massimo Giorgetti is grinning ear to ear. The strikingly handsome Italian designer, 40, is in town to shoot his Spring 2018 campaign with longtime collaborators Katie Grand and Alasdair McLellan. He’s smiling because, after a year of twos—two years as creative director of two brands (Pucci and his own MSGM), two years of weeks split between two cities (Florence and Milan), and two years of helming two different design teams, two collections and two shows—his focus has returned solely to his own brand.

In 2015, when Pucci announced that the MSGM founder would replace outgoing designer Peter Dundas, the industry applauded. It was about time a traditional Italian fashion house handed the reins to a young, fun designer popular with the influencer crowd—one who could make a storied luxury brand exciting for a younger generation of customers.

But it was not to be a long-term partnership. In April 2017—one year before his three-year contract was set to expire—Pucci and Giorgetti announced that they had agreed to part ways, the latter to refocus on his own label. (At the time of writing, Pucci has not yet named a replacement.) Here, in his first interview since a “mutual termination of contract” with the brand, the designer talks candidly about his time at Pucci, the challenges of being a young designer in Milan and his new MSGM PM collection of eveningwear, launching in January.

On Pucci…
I feel very lucky, because Pucci for me was an experience. I studied when I arrived in this different world that I didn’t know. Luxury, amazing fabrics, prints, also Italian craftsmanship on embroidery, on leather, on accessories, on shoes. For me, it was like going back to school, and I grew up a lot. With the LVMH group there are a lot of meetings, a big business strategy. I understood the power of the product manager, the power of the merchandiser—because the wrong merchandiser can do a lot of damage. When I accepted Pucci, I was younger. It’s now three years later, and now I feel completely different to how I did then.

On “abandoning” his team at MSGM…
When I was at Pucci I better understood what MSGM means to me. It’s like if you were to go outside your home and look at it from the outside. I studied my company, but I also studied myself. When I came back 100 per cent to MSGM, I had some problems with my team. They felt like I disappeared and left them alone, because I was working with Pucci. It’s really like when you have a boyfriend, or a family, and you leave for a while. At the end of the day, MSGM is my life; it is my family, so I can understand it now, but I didn’t realise how it felt to them when I was doing both.

On designers who become bigger than their brands…
I am happy that MSGM is more famous than me. I prefer to work than to go to the parties, and I can say that I live a normal life. When I started Pucci, I tried to do a different life. But it was not for me, to go to all these parties, to go to Los Angeles. There are some designers that want more, more, more about them and less about the clothes.

On making mistakes…
Sometimes I made mistakes at Pucci, but in fashion mistakes can be about one collection, or about a strategy. Sometimes you give a lot of power to stylists, a lot of power to photographers, and that can be a problem. Success in fashion goes in waves. After the big success, there comes the natural fall. So “Bravo, bravo, bravo” one minute, and two years later they go, “Bye bye!”

On being approached by other brands…
I’m still getting offers to go and design for other brands, but nothing could convince me to accept another job. I feel very lucky to have a brand of my own. I realised it is a special thing to work for a brand that is yours, that you created. They could offer me a lot of money; they could offer me anything, but I would say no. Because when you are designing at a house that is not yours, you are like a guest in their home. I have found my brand, and I am at home now.

On Milan, and its closed ranks…
In the beginning of MSGM I suffered, because in Milan the press said, “Oh, sweatshirts”, and they weren’t interested. The big Italian brands have the attitude, “This is our house, our garden,” and they are big, old families. For a young designer it is tough to carve a space. At the beginning the government, the Camera Moda, they didn’t help me. Only when I had 200 stores, 300 stores, they said, “Oh my god, MSGM is amazing, it’s a success, please enter into the calendar, please do a show.”

On his new eveningwear line, MSGM PM
In Asia, I discovered they are not so interested in feminine clothes. It’s much cooler, denim oversized jackets—oversized everything. In Europe, Italy, America, they want fitted, more feminine. So I realised I have to do this kind of easy cocktail dress, with a little ruffle, a little ruche that exists in every MSGM collection. But I wanted to present it again, as PM—for the Post Meridian time—because I observe the women around me and I know there’s a need for real women to dress for dinner, for the theatre, but not for the red carpet.

On fashion’s flirtation with see-now-buy-now…
I do not believe in it, and of that I am sure. I think when you see something—a bag, a dress—and you can immediately have it, you don’t give it its full importance. The desire has to start in your heart, in your brain, and then you have to wait. I think fashion has to come back to the original model. My dream is one collection a season. I have to do pre-fall, the main show, capsule collections, and then there are capsules for e-commerce, capsules for department stores, a T-shirt for this person, a plisse skirt for that person. Every week we have special projects, and everyone wants exclusives. Though I do think exclusive pieces for exclusive buyers are important, and an opportunity to have fun. My dream would be one collection per season, and a lot of little projects.

On the secret to his success…
Now I feel that I am back at home. I am happy, and now I have to get my head down and work. Humility is the secret. And not to say, “Bravo, bravo, wow, wow, wow” to myself. Because that is when you make a mistake. When you think, “I have arrived”—no no. You will never arrive. You are always in an important step; every six months is a step. I am learning, learning, learning all the time in every fitting, every meeting, in every day of my life, and that is the secret.